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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Champagne Showers

From 2006 through 2008, I broadcasted for three consecutive league champions. In the process, I bathed in six different champagne celebrations, much like the ones the Washington Nationals, Detroit Tigers, and Oakland Athletics all enjoyed last night.

It's a singular experience. It never gets old.

A champagne shower features the best kind of madness. Everyone is euphoric, and it's all the more heightened by sharing it with the guys who've shared the past exhausting, taxing, challenging months at your side -- and it's all been worth it.

In the midst of the shower, bear hugs and high praise are given out freely; the compliments you receive in a champaign shower come from that place in the heart only reachable in times of great joy and drunkenness.

Standing 5'7 (or perhaps 5'6 and a half) in the midst of a room filled with six-footers, I have had champagne poured on my head and down my face and back, and since I wasn't wearing goggles, it swept burningly into my eyes. And so there I stood, my hair and shirt soaked, my arms raised high in the air, laughing and shouting, my eyes tightly closed. If I wanted to imagine it, I might have been all alone in my exultation. But no one is alone in a champagne shower -- it's an individual memory that belongs to the team.

Those memories will keep me company for decades to follow.

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My favorite MLB champagne shower moment belongs to Kenny Rogers, 2006, Detroit Tigers starting pitcher, bringing champagne out and pouring drinks for all of the security guards and police officers at Comerica Park. A celebration really is about shared joy.

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I am, mostly, a non-drinker. (I would love to acquire a taste for wine, but it hasn't happened yet.) I do not imbibe at a champagne shower anything more than what is poured on my head and finds its way into my mouth.

It is an idle fantasy of mine, following a champagne shower, to be pulled over by a random police check. Then, smelling alcohol all over me, the officer asks me to step out of the car, breathe into the breathalyzer, walk a straight line, and say the alphabet. I pass with flying colors, smile from ear to ear, and wish the officer well before driving away.

1 comment:

Robin Sackevich
said...

I don't remember what year it was.. sometime in the late 80s I think when several players went out and popped open champagne bottles on the pitchers mound. They were quite drink. Nothing is better then watching your team win.